


Unrequited

by virginie



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 08:21:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12931317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginie/pseuds/virginie
Summary: This is a strange story (that hasn't seen a beta). I don't know where it came from or what made me write it.





	Unrequited

**Author's Note:**

> This is a strange story (that hasn't seen a beta). I don't know where it came from or what made me write it.

Gilfoyle opened his eyes in the dark. He could smell his own sweat, a sour funk of it hung in the air. His tongue was thick and his mouth tasted stale and sickly, like he’d drunk a bottle of candy flavoured vodka.

He was afraid to move, his head throbbing, his face weirdly numb. Tentatively he reached up to touch his face and it was as though another person’s fingers were making contact. His glasses were missing and his heart started thumping in anxiety.

He could hear Dinesh’s shallow breathing, an arm’s length away. His groping fingers hit carpet. He seemed to be lying on someone’s floor in the dark, feeling like he’d woken up in mother-fucking Hades, in a bad way, with a sleeping Dinesh beside him. And how the fuck did he know it was Dinesh?

For a moment his mind caught the tail of an answer, then he curled inward on himself and plunged down a darkening spiral into unconsciousness.

 

Dinesh had been dancing with a woman, laughing, grinning, dragging all the light in the room around him like a cloud. He was awkwardly whirling in place as she snapped and writhed next to him. He had stopped suddenly and looked around the room, eyes finding Gilfoyle where he sat trying to evade notice at the bar. Dinesh’s eyes were warm and brown and they seemed to zero right in, anchoring Gilfoyle in place as Dinesh advanced, holding the woman’s hand and enticing her along for the ride. 

“Gilfoyle, Gilfoyle! This is Sandra. Sandra! Gilfoyle!” he said, like a happy idiot. Sandra smiled at Dinesh and then at him. “Hi, Gilfoyle,” she said. Dinesh seemed to expand, the shoulders of his shirt stretching with pride. 

“Hi Sandra,” replied Gilfoyle, no warmth in his voice. Dinesh had hit the Dinesh jackpot. The tone of her voice implied intelligence and wry amusement, her smile at Dinesh was a clear sign of interest, and to top it off she was tall and pretty with a hint of strength.

“Sandra’s got something she might be willing to share,” said Dinesh. Gilfoyle glanced back at Sandra, and she gave him a little shrug. Gilfoyle drained his beer, and stood. 

“I’m in,” he said.

They wandered outside and away from the party until they found a quiet street with a tree and bench on a strip of grass. Dinesh and Sandra had a semi-charged banter thing going. Dinesh was doing really well, not trying, just being himself for once. Gilfoyle kept slightly aloof. He didn’t know why he didn’t just have the dignity to leave them to it and go home. 

Sandra produced a small ziplock bag containing pills. It was ecstasy, the perfect thing to grind off Gilfoyle’s edges. He could see Dinesh was torn between wanting to seem cool and fear that he’d damage his IQ. He’d never taken drugs. Gilfoyle had an achy feeling in his chest. He wanted to take Dinesh aside and make sure he was really okay with all this. It wasn’t too late for them both to bow out. He put a hand on Dinesh’s shoulder, on the verge of saying something, and Dinesh turned away from Sandra to look at him in surprise, as though he'd forgotten Gilfoyle was there. He looked so buzzed and happy and they hadn’t even taken anything yet. Gilfoyle lost his nerve. 

They ate one pill each. Sandra had a bottle of water and shared it with them.

Gilfoyle zoned out for a while. When he zoned back in Sandra was saying what a beautiful night it was and pointing out the position of Sirius while casually mentioning the pretentious sounding book of essays she was reading. Fuck, she was actually trying to impress Dinesh. Gilfoyle gave up. He got off the bench and lay behind it on the grass, out of their view, staring up at the branches of the tree. Dinesh twisted round to catch his eye and Gilfoyle gave him a slow wink. The wink was intended to convey: good on you bro, she’s awesome, you’re doing well in spite of being handicapped by your natural douchbaggery. Dinesh winked back, buying Gilfoyle’s bullshit as usual, luminous with pleasure. Then the E started kicking in and Gilfoyle stopped caring. 

 

The second time he woke he opened his eyes to dim light. He was on his own bed, a blurry glass of water on the bedside table. His curtains were closed and rimmed by a dull strip of daylight. He could hear cars on the road and the sprinkler from next door. Next to the water on the table there was a familiar jumble of lines and reflections, he groped at it and found his glasses. Sitting up he drank the tepid water, gulping it down in relief. His whole body still ached, but it was the fading memory of pain rather than the extreme edge. 

The door creaked open and Dinesh stood in the doorway. 

“Dude, I thought you’d be scraping me into an uber the morning after, not the other way around.” Dinesh’s voice was full of false cheer. 

“What happened?” Gilfoyle croaked. 

"Life happened,” said Dinesh, his smile strained. “We took some drugs, went to a house party with some friends of Sandra’s, took some more drugs, drank quite a lot, passed out. I woke up and brought you home. It was epic, man.”

Gilfoyle had a flash of a golden feeling, light and joy and the amazing beauty of touching the soft fabric of the shirt someone was wearing, the glorious feeling of their arm underneath, the wonder of someone’s fingers in his hair. Music thrumming through his body, his heart pumping in time to the beat, the ferocious tides in the music dragging him in.

“You got lucky with Sandra.” He was fishing shamelessly. He didn’t care. 

Dinesh swallowed. “Yeah, she was great.”

“Did you get her number, you mouth-breathing idiot? She didn’t seem wholly disgusted by you.”

“No. I didn’t see her this morning.” 

“Well. Get it. Go back. She knew someone at that house, they’ll be able to hook you up. She really seemed to be into you. You did a good job of hiding your real self.”

“Yeah,” Dinesh sounded uncertain and embarrassed. Gilfoyle let it go. 

“Can you bring me some more water? I need to stay here and not move.”

Dinesh left and returned a minute later with a jug of water from the kitchen. He refilled Gilfoyle’s glass and handed it to him, taking care to keep his fingers away from Gilfoyle’s.

“Do you know what else we took? I’m destroyed,” Gilfoyle asked.

“No.” said Dinesh. “I’m never doing drugs again, though. Never again. I could have damaged my brain.”

“How do you know you didn’t?” said Gilfoyle.

 

Gilfoyle was flying, his skin was alive, the hair on his neck felt like silk, the fabric of his jeans was beautiful and beautiful music was pumping through his veins and bringing him to life. Somewhere in the back of his brain he knew it was cheesy and he’d be his cynical self the next day but nothing could touch him now, nothing could take down the joy coursing through him even by a notch. 

Dinesh was dancing with Sandra, his back to Gilfoyle, and the strip of skin above his collar looked so warm and soft and secret that Gilfoyle had to touch. He had to stop dancing so he could concentrate on it, things were moving too fast and so he slowed right down and got up really close to Dinesh. His fingers felt cool on Dinesh’s neck and touching him was as lovely as he’d imagined. He was gently stroking his fingers along the strip of skin when Dinesh spun around. He grabbed Gilfoyle’s hand as though to stop him and held it in both of his own. Then he seemed to forget what he’d been going to do. They stood there for a while focusing on the feeling of their hands, till Gilfoyle started moving again, his heart pounding, just his thumb across the back of Dinesh’s hand. 

 

His heart dropped. Dropped and dropped and dropped into a coal black abyss. He’d never felt such self-loathing. He lay in his dim room, head sore, heart sick, mind shrinking from the truth, every excuse in the world to never get out of bed and never face Dinesh again.   
  
Everything rushed back in technicolour, in old fashioned 3D with ghosts of blue and red on the edges, the shifting sliding unreality of a high, the feeling that he could fly, he could expand to the size of a building, speak in tongues, sing like Kiri-fucking-Te-Kanawa, and make Dinesh love him.

He had taken advantage of Dinesh, worse. Much worse. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It was all coming back, burning, roaring in his brain, Dinesh so pliant, so unresistant, so into everything. Gilfoyle knew, he knew, even as it was happening, there was a tiny part of his brain that knew better. That was better than this. But he'd never given that part a say. 

 

He woke the next morning, and drank the entire refilled water jug on his bedside table. His body felt almost normal, just the usual shoulder aches from non-stop staring at a screen, low level pre-caffeine headache, and undemanding morning wood. He got up, went to the bathroom, pissed uncomfortably, drank some water straight from the tap, and stared into his reflection. He looked the same. Rough, but normal. No sign on his chest or anything. Rapist. He looked down at the bulge in his sweatpants, and, disgusted, stripped them off and got into the shower. 

The warm water ran over his limbs, the warmth kinder than he deserved—he turned it to cold—and contemplated what to say to Dinesh. He shook his head. Nothing for it, no easy way. Just rip the bandaid off.

 

Dinesh was the only one in the workroom when he walked in, still clammy from the cold shower. He looked up, reflexively. Seeing Gilfoyle, he grimaced and looked down again.

Gilfoyle stopped a few feet away. Instinctively, he didn’t want to encroach on Dinesh’s space, the reverse of his usual impulse.

“Dinesh, we need to talk.”

Gilfoyle could see Dinesh’s shoulders tense inside his yellow t-shirt. It was Gilfoyle’s favourite, the yellow lit up his skin. He really had to stop thinking that way. 

“If it’s about your appalling excuse for code, I’ve fixed it. No need to thank me.”

“It’s not,” Gilfoyle said. Dinesh kept resolutely staring at his screen. 

“Dinesh.” Gilfoyle spoke gently. In response Dinesh started typing loudly.

“Dinesh, please. Let’s go out by the pool for a few minutes.”

The typing continued. 

“You can’t write code that fast man. Give it up.”

Dinesh collapsed, breath escaping and his spine regaining its normal slump. He stopped typing. 

“We don’t need to talk,” he said. “Everything is fine.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Finally Dinesh looked up. He dragged himself to his feet and headed out of the workroom to the far side of the pool. Gilfoyle followed him. 

They both sat down on the edge, four feet apart by silent mutual agreement, dangling their calves in the water. It was bright and sunny and Dinesh squinted at him, waiting. Gilfoyle took a deep breath. The truth. 

“Dinesh, I know we were both out of it, but I took advantage of you last night. I’ve wanted you for a long time, even though I know what I feel is one-sided. I can see how uncomfortable you are, and I’m incredibly sorry.” 

Dinesh had gone pale and then red. He inspected a tiny tear in his shorts.

“It wasn’t your fault. I went along with it.”

“You’ve never taken drugs before. You weren’t in as much control as I was. You took the E to impress Sandra. Hell, I _knew_ that.”

Dinesh’s hands gripped the side of the pool. 

“It’s not like it’s going to happen again. Don’t worry about it,” he said. He looked up at Gilfoyle. “Let’s not ever take drugs together again. Sorted.”

Gilfoyle met his eyes and Dinesh swung his away. It would be easy to leave it at that. Walk away, give Dinesh some space and then slowly try and rebuild their friendship.

“Dinesh, I committed sexual assault. At the very least I’m going to talk to Jared and Richard and resign. It’s not right that you have to work with me every day. You should consider pressing charges, and getting some counselling. Please talk to Jared. He’ll know what to do.”

Dinesh looked up again, his face taut with misery. 

“Bullshit! Fuck off!”

“Dinesh, you can’t stand to be near me. You’re angry at me, and it’s only going to build.”

Gilfoyle stood up. He looked down at Dinesh, his yellow t-shirt a bright reflection in the water. Remembered the taste of his skin and felt sick with longing.

“Gilfoyle, no. You’re ruining everything.”

Gilfoyle met his eyes again, and this time Dinesh held them, anguished. 

“I already did,” said Gilfoyle.

 

Gilfoyle hired a van and moved his stuff into storage. He slept on a friend’s couch for a couple of weeks until he found a new flat. He gave Jared and Richard two weeks' notice but worked them remotely, from the couch, from Starbucks, anywhere but the stale-smelling, familiar, beloved workroom where he’d done the best work of his life. 

He told them both the truth and knew that Jared at least would be able to find the right way to talk to Dinesh about it. He’d be able to intelligently discuss his options for pressing charges and he’d know how to find a counsellor. They were both shocked, but took him seriously. Jared didn’t seem surprised to discover Gilfoyle’s long-term unrequited longing for Dinesh, just saddened and confused by his actions. They both hugged him uncomfortably and said they hoped they’d find a way to work together again. Gilfoyle walked away from the house during a stupidly beautiful sunset and he couldn't even look at the sky. Everything was tainted with the sour taste of regret. 

 

He got a job a Hooli. Just a nothing dev job, maintenance, under the radar. It was boring work and his colleagues were idiots but the pay was good. He started going to church meetings again, went hiking, smoked a bit of pot with his new housemates and thought about how badly he'd fucked up every single day.

 

Six months later Gilfoyle opened the door of his flat to find Dinesh standing on the step outside. It was a cold winter afternoon. 

Gilfoyle stared at him in surprise. He looked good.

Dinesh seemed shocked to see him too. Then he shook his head.

“You absolute bastard. Let me in, it’s freezing out here.”

Gilfoyle stepped out of the way and closed the door after him, leading the way down the corridor to the kitchen. 

“Coffee?”  
  
“Okay,” said Dinesh. He sat at the rickety kitchen table and watched while Gilfoyle made it.

Gilfoyle's fingers were shaking. He gave up on anything fancy. Instant would do.

When they were facing each other across the table Dinesh gave him a hard stare. 

“I have something to say.”

“Okay.”  
  
“You did all the talking last time.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Shut up now then.” 

Gilfoyle nodded.

“I was angry at you.” Gilfoyle nodded again. “You did take advantage of me, I acknowledge that. I’m not making excuses for you, but neither of us was sober that night. You’d never made me feel uncomfortable before that, and it’s been years right?”

Gilfoyle nodded again. He’d developed a crush on Dinesh the day he met him, and years of watching him ineffectually chase women had not dented it. Years of getting to know him had made it real. He pushed his treacherous feelings down. 

“I’m not pressing charges, but I did get some counselling. It was a confusing time, and it helped. Plus, she was hot.”

“Oh my god, Dinesh. You can’t sexually objectify your sexual assault counsellor—”

“Shut up.” Dinesh held up his palm.

Gilfoyle swallowed his words and stopped breathing. 

“I miss you, man. We all do,” said Dinesh. He waited for Gilfoyle to look up and meet his eyes. “No one can write shitty code like you can.” Dinesh grinned, but then his mouth dropped. “And you don’t get to make all the decisions.”

Gilfoyle started breathing again, beginning to hope. One of his flatmates walked through the kitchen. She was talking on her phone, arguing with her boyfriend. She flipped her brown hair and Dinesh’s eyes lit up.

“Come back. Don't move back in if you don't want to. You seem to have a sweet setup here.” He leered comically, playing the old Dinesh. 

Gilfoyle rolled his eyes as the little knife slipped in. A familiar feeling, not unwelcome. 

Dinesh drained his coffee and stood up. 

“Jared and Richard are outside with a contract, if you’re keen to look at it? They’ll be freezing their balls off by now.”

Gilfoyle felt warmth flood his limbs. He wanted to hug Dinesh, so badly. He stood up and flipped him off instead.

“What the hell, I’ll go talk to them.”

Dinesh grinned in relief. Then he stepped closer to Gilfoyle and put a hand on his arm. Gilfoyle flinched but stood his ground. He would take what was coming. 

"You hurt me, man," said Dinesh. "You hurt _us_. I was so angry at you. But you're a good man. This is me, forgiving you."

Gilfoyle's heart was so warm and heavy he figured he'd never move again. He'd just live rooted to this spot on the faded tiles in his crummy flat. His vision blurred. The weight of Dinesh's hand on his arm felt like grace.

They stood together for a little while, caught in the moment. Then they walked outside.

 

Gilfoyle still woke in the early hours after late nights of coding, strung out on caffeine and sugar, and found himself trapped in his drugged-soaked memories of Dinesh. He brutally forced them down every time. Made himself get up and drink a glass of water, flip on the tv, go for a run in the dark, focus on something else. 

Jared caught him once or twice, half-looking at Dinesh, giving himself away. Jared was keeping an eye on him. Good. 

One day Jared approached him after the others had drifted off. He sat down awkwardly.

“I know how it feels to want someone you can never have. And should never have.”

“Good for you,” said Gilfoyle. 

Jared ignored this and ploughed on. “You will eventually meet someone else, someone who will love you back and clear this fog of wanting out of your mind. Hang in there.”

Gilfoyle didn’t look up. “Thanks, Grandma,” he said. 

Jared put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Any time you want to talk, I’m here.”

Gilfoyle felt too warmed by Jared’s kindness to think of a snide response, and then Jared was gone.

 

In daylight it was fine. His regard for Dinesh was a steady low thrum, built of respect and liking and annoyance and bad code and good code and having each other’s backs. The pull of wanting receded and he sometimes forgot it was there. At night he remembered. But he was dealing with it. He was dealing with it. He could deal.


End file.
